So you think you’re savvy when it comes to scams, huh? Maybe you’d never click on a link in an email from someone you don’t know with a funny email address asking to send money to Nigeria — but what if it seemed to come from a coworker you know very well including a link that looks totally legit? That’s apparently how the hack of the Associated Press Twitter account went down, with a scam called “spear-phishing.” [More]
associated press
We Live In A World Where A Single Fake Tweet Can Screw With The Stock Market
By 4.23.13
Earlier today, someone hacked the Associated Press’s Twitter feed and decided to use this opportunity to let the world know that there had been explosions at the White House and that President Obama was injured, neither of which were true. Not so long ago, this might have sent MySpace pages ablaze but would have been ignored by Wall Street. Oh, how we dream of those more innocent days. [More]
Woot To AP: You Owe Us $17.50 For Copying Our Content
By 7.6.10
When Woot announced last week that it was going to be acquired by Amazon.com, just about everyone wrote about it. However, of the many media organizations that covered the deal, only one has floated a policy that would charge bloggers for the kind of excerpting that’s historically been considered fair use. So, when the Associated Press, in writing about the Woot-Amazon deal, borrowed some of Woot’s own verbiage, the deal-a-day site struck back and told the wire service it expected $17.50 for the words. Or the AP could just buy two pairs of Sennheiser in-ear headphones and call it even. [More]
Boa Constrictor Discovered Lounging On Top Of ATM
By 8.22.09
Is this boa constrictor discovered on top of an ATM in Serbia part of an attempt to control the scourge of mice nesting in ATMs, or just the latest international crime syndicate to take up ATM skimming?
Consumers Are Manic Depressive
By 5.5.06
Unable to decide whether the economy is good or bad, the Chicago Tribune settles for a resounding, “Yes.”
A Worse Virus Than Mac Trojans: Bad AP Journalism
By 5.3.06
According to this piece by the Daring Fireball blog dissecting an AP article on the recent rumors that Macs are susceptible to viruses, sometimes journalism is fluffy and insipid.
